Bob Dylan, "Love and Theft"

my take is love and theft much like most dylan albums is a great album...its high points , however, are not as high as time out of mind's high points (say not dark yet) but its more consistent..

its a great record as a tribute to AMERICAN MUSIC>.its got bluegrass, country, rock and folk and the kitchen sink in it...

i wish he had used the arrangement sheryl crow used on mississippi(he gave her the song to record before he recorded it) instead of slowing it down like he did.....

i think its hard not to like love and theft...BUT its not an album that moves me as much as other parts of his ouevre...

i can't wait for him to release another one but i'm pretty sure its going to be a few years.. he only releases albums to drum up business for his shows.. he has no real interest in recording... thats pretty apparent...

He might have done a 180 on this later, but he did give a blurb for "Invisible Republic," I believe it was.

As for the album, I love L&T even more than TOOM. I think it's off base to say he's not much interested in recording when he put so much work into these two records. He even booted Lanois off the L&T sessions because he wanted a different sound. His interest has obviously been rekindled.

And while musicians seldom, ah, intrude on Dylan's creations, Charlie Sexton may be the worst guitarist ever for him. A much worse presence than the Dreaded Lanois, which is saying something. Fako Americana effect. I'd rather hear Dylan sing 'We Three' then try to rewrite it.

Slow

down.

--didn't like it much. I hardly remember what it sounded like. Slow Train Comin' might be embarrassing lyrically at times, but musically, I'll take it over Love & Theft. But then, I think Slow Train Comin' is pretty good.

The notion that he only records to drum up business for his shows is nonesense. Dylan is one of the only musicians outside of jazz who actually tours whether he has an album to promote or not. It is true that he has little patience for the recording process - but he tours relentlessly - it matters not if his latest record is 3 years old or 3 weeks old - he does not tour to promote records and he does not make records to promote tours. He records when he has new songs and he tours because he loves playing live.

the late '90s live versions of 'love sick' etc are kind of incredible

Some of the songs are better than others (the album gets snoozy at times). And the playing is a little too dull and "old-guy professional" for my taste (it makes me think of a talk show band). But I like everything about "Mississippi." And I think the lyrics are really entertaining and sharp all the way through.

And his voice... man oh man... it's just one of my favorite things in the world.

(I haven't heard any of the albums between Under the Red Sky and this one.)

greil marcus' invisible republic is shite. its just a bunch of mumbo jumbo.. he goes way too far in his analysis... thats my opinion of course....

and i love self portrait too!

i didn't mean to imply that no one but dylan had touched that blurb. perhaps his manager did write it (but i wonder how you are so sure), but in any event dylan signed off on it. it's not as though his name appears under blurbs terribly often.

"invisible republic" is only like 10% "about" dylan's songs anyway.

Levon Helm book blurb #3. I agree that if it had his imprint, what's the diff, but you REALLY think it sounds like him?

"Greil Marcus has done it again."

sorry .. i don't think we are going to reach agreement on this...

Decent, but "Time Out Of Mind" destroys it. And there was no need to give the best song to Sheryl Crow before reclaiming it.

It looks like nobody has a definite answer. But ... in 'High Water' he even rehashes the old Coo-Coo song!

My other quandary is: Love and Theft vs Time Out Of Mind. I have never quite been able to choose. Perhaps I do rate TOOM higher, but L&T is such a lot of fun.

I mostly like Love & Theft because it's kinda spry and punchy, not what I was expecting after TOOM. A handful of great tunes and a whole bunch of good ones.

i mean, i probably wish that about lots of records, but, you know.

I don't have "Chronicles" handy, but, yeah, he confesses he wasn't happy with Lanois "voodoo" sound. I'm inclined to blame both Lanois' production and Dylan's uneven songwriting.

Not "misguided," but you might as well wish for a pony while you're at it. I think Dylan's been trying, sporadically at least, to recapture that sound for the last 30-odd years.

Summer Days is so hot. So many great lines, the band is just relentless, and Bob sounds like he is having a blast.

frankiemachine otm 20 years ago ^^

TOOM has maybe higher highs (debatable), but L&T sounds way better, the band is way hotter, it's funnier, and it's much more consistent.

I mean he does sound like the Cowardly Lion half the time on L&T, but that's a bonus in my house.

I just don't get the complains that LAT rates a "zzz." Dylan's phrasing and the mileage he still gets out of that corroded voice would be pleasure enough even if that wondrous backing band wasn't cracking out great riffs.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Tuesday, May 3, 2005

also otm imo

Love this album (and TOOM) so much - amazing to think at the time "well I'm glad he had one last masterpiece in him" and here we are 24 years later, he's still doing it.

hugely otm alfred

"Lonesome Day" as a performance is still the one that gets me; he's wheezing through a toilet paper roll ("SAAAAAHHHHD und LOANsome DAAAY!").

Feel like a fightin rooster, and he really does

One of the greatest records ever made (for me). I guess there are better Dylan albums but this is the one I’d keep. I find something enthralling about a late-period record that’s truly great, as opposed to to adjusted-expectations-great

“Charlie Sexton may be the worst guitarist ever for him” was once someone’s opinion I guess

He did a five night stand in Chicago touring behind this album, each night in a different venue with a different capacity, most relatively small. I got to see him do three or four of them, and it was a blast.

last night the wind was whisperin
i was trying to make out what it waaaaaaas

I feel like this is the tour where he started to do a cute little on stage shuffle?

the double shuffle
throwin sand on the floor

I don't always love bootleg audience videos, but this one is great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSSsmSsfhaE

That It Ain't Me Babe is pretty good, but that thing Bob does with his left leg is so weird.

I saw the show just prior to this one in Philly.

picking up the cherries falling off the plate

xxpost I just noticed he had a guitar in that video! When was the point where he stopped playing guitar? All those times I saw him around this era he was standing around a keyboard usually.

Keyboard became more prominent about a year later

He had hand trouble starting later in the decade.

He had switched to keys when I saw him in 2005.

What a rascal:

When an executive from Columbia stopped by to hear some tracks, Dylan kept alluding to an acoustic version of “Cry a While” that didn’t exist just to yank the executive’s chain. Seeing a new issue of Rolling Stone in the studio featuring Destiny’s Child on the cover, with the cover line “Booty Camp,” Dylan was inspired to slip the phrase “booty call” into “Cry a While.” Dylan told Shaw he wanted to release a live album – but with all the dates and cities listed incorrectly to mess with the heads of Dylanologists.

The Mr. Tambourine Man (second song) on this show from Portsmouth, England about a year before L&T's release . . . what a performance, what a band.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIq2xpNgWXE

pretty good album

Top 5 Bob for me

^^^
His funniest album (other than possibly The Basement Tapes).

Top 3! Although I feel like I've measured every subsequent album against it, which hasn't always been helpful (for the album)

As distant today, as BOTT was at the time

LIAR that cannot possibly be tr... oh

Some of his best singing imo

'Love & Theft' is easily one of my Top 5 Dylan albums.* It's one that will be forever linked to its release date for me (a familiar story that I share with many others: I was eagerly anticipating the release date, living in New York City, and buying the CD 15 minutes after the 4th and Bway Tower Records opened on 9/11, while the planes were hitting) -- a true measure of the strength of the album is that while certain songs and particular lines seemed apocalyptic and uncannily linked to the day's events, and still do, at the same time, as was said above, it's clear to me now that it's one of Dylan's funniest albums. (And best-sung albums.) It's also the last album he's done that allowed the band's playing to be as free and anarchic and playful as his '60s masterpieces. Since then, a 'Jack Frost' production has come to mean a completely Pro Tools-wrought backdrop of featureless, looped instrumental backing laid down behind whatever lyrics and voice Dylan has brought to His Latest Recording Project. Which results that have ranged from awful ('Tempest') to fantastic ('Rough and Rowdy Ways'). 'Love and Theft' is also the first and only post-80s album made by Dylan's currently-gigging band given free rein to actually play -- the only time I saw Dylan live was in November 2001 at Madison Square Garden, which was so perfect in every way (the outfits! the set list! the insane lead guitar-Bob-led band!) that I've never felt the desire/need to see him again.

* In case you care, my top 5 Dylan albums are Highway 61 and John Wesley Harding, regularly swapping out the No 1 and No 2 spots, 3. "Love & Theft", 4. Blonde on Blonde and 5. Time Out of Mind ('TOOM' with a few custom song deletions and replacments on my part.) 'Rough and Rowdy Ways' is in the running for a top spot of some sort in the Nos 6-10 tier, it's too early for me to commit, though. (I similarly hedged my bets about "Love & Theft" for a few years, apparently it's now been 25 years (!), but I had already felt pretty comfortable putting up around 'Blonde on Blonde' level by 2005 or so.) 'Rowdy Ways' feels more and more like it'll have a place in the bottom of my Top 10 Dylan LPs, although I can't put my possible Nos 6-10 in any sort of permanent order: 'Bringing It All Back Home','Blood on the Tracks (NYC Version), 'Under the Red Sky' and 'World Gone Wrong' have all been contenders. (The Bootleg Series has made a happy mess of the Dylan studio LP ranking game, in particular 'The Bootleg Series Vols 1-3', 'Volume 11: Basement Tapes Complete', and 'Tell Tale Signs' (the 3 CD version).)

I still crack a smile every time I hear this:
Othello told Desdemona, “I’m cold, cover me with a blanket
By the way, what happened to that poison wine?”
She said, “I gave it to, you drank it”

xp - assert (matttkkkkk): 'YES!' hahaha! superb!

xxp aw no, I like the production of Tempest, esp. guitar sound he gets on chorus "I pay in blood, but not my own."

Since then, a 'Jack Frost' production has come to mean a completely Pro Tools-wrought backdrop of featureless, looped instrumental backing laid down behind whatever lyrics and voice Dylan has brought

Dylan still prefers to record live, he's against looping (even though Lanois managed to do at least one for Time Out of Mind), BUT you're not off in terms of how it sounds because he really doesn't like his players soloing while he's singing, and that's definitely how Sexton and Campbell were different/better than the others: they weren't afraid to push the limit.

Chris Shaw talked about it when he was on Gear Club, and a good excerpt that covers that can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r86Ew_P9XVU

I don't know where it is, but the excerpt with Shaw opens the podcast and lasts about 24 minutes - worth hearing in its entirety.

Have to respectfully agree to disagree on 'Tempest' -- terrible terrible production (even worse than 'Modern Times') -- I've no reason to suspect that the production process employed on 'Rough and Rowdy Ways' is substantially different, but the recorded sound (and Dylan's voice) on the latter make it one of his most surpassingly beautiful albums. I understand what you mean about 'that' guitar sound on 'Pay In Blood': for me, 'Narrow Way' nails that effect, but the never-varying dynamic level on that (and the rest of the album) does no favor to Dylan's ragged voice, and 'Tempest' is an inexplicably terrible collection of songs (save for the heartrending, gorgeous 'Long and Wasted Years' ...)

xp Actually it starts around 8:45

Dylan has said (as might be expected, Dylan being Dylan) very different things about the Pro Tools work flow -- I listened to that Chris Shaw podcast awhile back, but then there are contradictions in Dylan's own words --- I think he likes getting a 'natural sound' of the band using vintage approaches to miking and amplifiers, but he's definitely gone in for the idea of making the band's playing as featureless and repetitive as possible on his post-Love and Theft albums, because what he does like about the digital work process is that it allows him to swap lyrics and verses with ease, and a more active musical background would make that less possible. It's hard to square the many things he's said, even as reported by Chris Shaw (and also, it may not be coincidental that Shaw was the engineer on Dylan's two best, and best-sounding 21st century records,'Love and Theft' and 'Rough and Rowdy Ways' (yes he did 'Modern Times', but apparently was not involved in 'Tempest' and 'Together Through Life', the two albums of Dylan's own songs that really suffer from a lack of interaction between the music and the singer.) https://www.uncut.co.uk/features/recording-with-bob-dylan-chris-shaw-tells-all-37854/

xp Thanks birdistheword!

you're welcome!

Yes, thanks once again, bird; you always come up with something useful.
Good day to re-read Greg Tate's ever-timely review of L&T, while the ancient ghost-Voice link is still working for this'un:
https://www.villagevoice.com/intelligence-data/
Which was also Top-Tenned by top jazz crit Gary Giddens---"Dylan sings the changes"---and yrs. truly, quoted in Pazz and Jop: "Love & Theft is the best Tom Waits album ever. (The book is real good too.)

“It's hard to square the many things he's said“

Well, that doesn’t sound like the Bob that I know.

"Love and Theft" is great and was especially significant to me personally as the first time I got excited about a new Bob Dylan album in my lifetime. When I was a child the only Dylan albums we had at home were the Christian albums and those didn't particularly grab me at the time (though I love them now). I first got into Dylan (his back catalog, that is) in the early '90s around the time of "Under the Red Sky" and I had always taken it for granted that his new work could be safely ignored. I realize now that I actually missed a pretty great album by ignoring "World Gone Wrong" at the time but I didn't realize that until much later. So "Love & Theft" was major for me. (I know some people felt that way about "Time Out Of Mind" but I always felt that one was overrated.) So I was full of anticipation when "Modern Times" eventually came out five years later. In terms of the style and sound, it took the old-timey sound of my favorite L&T tracks and focused on that throughout, which I liked. Also its highlights are better than the best tracks on L&T. However, it also suffered a bit from that samey-ness of sound, and some of the tracks stretched out much longer than they needed to: e.g. "Rollin & Tumblin" would have been fine if it was 3 minutes long. In general I don't mind a blues-rooted sound that is simple and repetitious to the point of droning (I love Mississippi John Hurt for instance, or the minimal repetitive sound of "John Wesley Harding") but not everyone may have such a high tolerance for it.

I have never liked TOOM, preferring Oh Mercy (still do). Even made my peace with "Disease of Conceit."

xxxp Thanks dow!

re: Love and Theft, not only is it the first Dylan album I've really looked forward to in my lifetime, it's really the only one where I had high expectations so the anticipation was great, thanks to 1) the praise for his last album, 2) the fact that the songs from his last album sounded even better live (IMHO), thanks to his best band since, well, the BAND, 3) the news that the very same band was recording the new album, and 4) how much I loved "Things Have Changed," also performed by the very same band. Maybe I was overconfident from youthful optimism, but I had no doubt it was going to be awesome. My expectations were met and then some, and yet it's also fitting that said youthful optimism would be crushed on the very same day by catastrophic world events.

this feels like his last classic album. I like Rough & Rowdy Ways too but not as much as this one. Ones in between I could take or leave, tbh

His funniest album (other than possibly The Basement Tapes).

Yeah, I agree with that. He's got funny songs scattered throughout the catalog, but usually not more than one per album. "Another Side" has two: "I Shall Be Free No. 10" and "Motorpsycho Nightmare", but the humor feels a bit dated now. "Blonde on Blonde" also has a few: "Rainy Day Women" and "Leopard Skin Pill Box Hat" are still funny. "Stuck inside Of Memphis" is funny in a shaggy-dog story kind of way. But "L&T" has jokes scattered throughout, many of them good.

Also his pick and delivery of Cy Coleman & J.A. McCarthy's "Why Try to Change Me Now?":
"I'm sentimental, so I walk in the rain,
I've got some habits even I can't explain.
Could start for the corner, turn up in Spain.
But why try to change me now?

I sit and daydream, I've got daydreams galore.
Cigarette ashes, there they go on the floor,
I'll go away weekends, leave my keys in the door.
But why try to change me now?"

Kinda reminds me of "If Dogs Run Free," one of my all-time faves by anybody. (And there are stories involving his dogs, true road dogs, of Rolling Thunder and the Never Ending Tour, for instance.)

I love L&T and Modern Times both. Definitely L&T has a looser and livelier feel, Modern Times a little more doomy. Lots of funny lines on that one too tho. Definitely his last great era, both of those albums (and I'd throw "Things Have Changed" in there too). I think of it as kind of his sly riverboat gambler phase, he was relaxing into his 60s.

Thanks to Dow for the link to the much-missed Greg Tate's great piece for the Voice.